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''Social Evolution'' is the title of an essay by Benjamin Kidd, which became available as a book published by Macmillan and co London in 1894. In it, Kidd discusses the basis for society as an evolving phenomenon, with reference to past societies, the important developments of his own period of thriving capitalist industry, and possible future developments.
The book is important in that it summarises the thinking of
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English polymath active as a philosopher, psychologist, biologist, sociologist, and anthropologist. Spencer originated the expression "survival of the fittest", which he coined in '' ...
as well as others like
Karl Marx
Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...
at the end of the nineteenth century when many people were trying to make sense of Darwin's evolutionary ideas, and
social Darwinism
Charles Darwin, after whom social Darwinism is named
Social Darwinism is a body of pseudoscientific theories and societal practices that purport to apply biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology, economi ...
was a hot topic. Kidd finds flaws in the ideas of both Spencer and Marx. With no knowledge of
World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
that was to come in 1914, or the
Bolshevik revolution
The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. It was led by Vladimir L ...
of 1917, Kidd explained the flaw in Marx's thinking, and predicted that capitalist industries would not ultimately fall into the hands of the workers as Marx was claiming was inevitable, and that any communist society must ultimately fail.
Herbert Spencer, whose writings were very influential in the latter half of the nineteenth century, thought that man's nature was evolving towards a state of perfection such that he would naturally live in harmony with society, but Kidd explained how this was incompatible with the neo-Darwinian theory that was being accepted as a result of
August Weismann
August Friedrich Leopold Weismann (; 17 January 18345 November 1914) was a German evolutionary biology, evolutionary biologist. Fellow German Ernst Mayr ranked him as the second most notable evolutionary theorist of the 19th century, after Charl ...
's doctrine of germ-line transmission without modification.
Kidd's major claim is that religion makes sense when seen as what he calls a 'supra-rational sanction' for our behaviour, which acts in the interest of survival of the group, and the yet-to-be-born members of the group, and is necessarily in conflict with our basic human instincts which act in favour of the individual in his lifetime. Thus, while not believing in any supernatural being, Kidd proposed that religion, a feature of so many past and present societies, was probably essential to the evolutionary survival of a society.
Auguste Comte
Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte (; ; 19 January 1798 – 5 September 1857) was a French philosopher, mathematician and writer who formulated the doctrine of positivism. He is often regarded as the first philosopher of science in the ...
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Evolutionary psychology
Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach in psychology that examines cognition and behavior from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify human psychological adaptations with regard to the ancestral problems they evolved ...
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Sociocultural evolution
Sociocultural evolution, sociocultural evolutionism or social evolution are theories of sociobiology and cultural evolution that describe how Society, societies and culture change over time. Whereas sociocultural development traces processes t ...
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Origin of religion
The evolutionary origin of religion and religious behavior is a field of study related to evolutionary psychology, the origin of language and mythology, and cross-cultural comparison of the anthropology of religion. Some subjects of interest ...
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Psychology of religion
Psychology of religion consists of the application of psychological methods and interpretive frameworks to the diverse contents of religious traditions as well as to both religious and irreligious individuals. The various methods and frameworks ...